Latest Nursing News

WOMEN concerned about earning 17.5 per cent less than men should become engineers rather than nurses to double their salary. That’s the view of the leading authority on graduate employment issues in Australia, Graduate Careers Australia policy adviser Bruce Guthrie, who said the gender pay debate is “the issue that is tearing my hair out”. In a swipe at pay equality advocates who believe there should be no difference between the pay of men and women, Mr Guthrie said female university students need to consider careers that will give them better pay in the long run

TWO hundred nursing positions are set to be axed from the state’s hospitals in the next nine months as part of a cost-cutting blitz across the health department. SA Health deputy chief executive David Archer revealed the figure in evidence to a State Parliament committee, sparking fears that frontline patient care could be put at risk.

The Tamworth branch of the Nurses and Midwives Association has handed over a petition with over 2,000 local signatures, collected in support of changes to nurse-to-patient ratios. Acting Tamworth Branch Secretary Jill Telfer travelled to Sydney for the September 17 International Day of Action, where signatures collected by branches across the state were gathered, to be presented to Parliament.

NURSES will receive a 3 per cent annual pay rise for the next three years under a new enterprise agreement reached today between the State Government and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation. The agreement - which will be voted on by members on October 3 - also provides a professional development allowance from July 2016. Health Minister Jack Snelling said reaching agreement on the terms was good news for South Australia's patients and families, as well as nurses and midwives.

South Australia's nurses will get a nine per cent pay rise over the next three years under a new enterprise agreement with the state government. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) will now put the new deal to a vote of nurses and midwives for approval. Health Minister Jack Snelling said the agreement meant patients would continue to have access to high-quality nursing and midwifery care.

NURSES will receive a 3 per cent annual pay rise for the next three years under a new enterprise agreement reached today between the State Government and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation. The agreement - which will be voted on by members on October 3 - also provides a professional development allowance from July 2016. Health Minister Jack Snelling said reaching agreement on the terms was good news for South Australia's patients and families, as well as nurses and midwives.

More than $1 billion in pay rises for Australia’s 350,000 aged care nurses and care workers is in doubt after the new Coalition Federal Government revealed the funds will be redirected into the general aged care budget. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) federal secretary Lee Thomas said it was disappointing the government was abandoning the first ever pay rise set to directly flow into the pockets of underpaid nurses and care workers.

Perioperative nurse Jennifer Adamthwaite uses much of the same equipment and instruments in the theatres on board the charity hospital ship Africa Mercy as she does in the theatres at Victoria’s Swan Hill District Health. The only difference to the work is the actual operations. “The operations are more extreme than anything we do at home,” Jennifer said.

We've all heard the urban legend of the patient who turns up in hospital emergency with something inserted where it shouldn't be. But is the easy availability of camera phones encouraging doctors and nurses to take a souvenir snap of the occasion? A study of one big Australian hospital has found about half of all doctors and nurses take photos of patients in hospital – and one in five using their personal smartphone.

A coronial inquest has found a midwife and nurse at two of Perth's main hospitals died of accidental overdoses within six months of each other after obtaining drugs from their workplaces. Hayley Fisher, 27, died in December 2009 after injecting the powerful painkiller fentanyl while at work at King Edward Memorial Hospital. She was found dead in a hospital toilet.